Platform strategy, vendor consolidation, and data architecture for brokerages and proptech operators. $5,499/mo Advisory, $9,499/mo full.
- Audit
- Architect
- Scale
monthly retainer
Who this is for
You run a brokerage, lead a proptech startup, or manage a multi-office real estate operation where the tech stack has grown faster than any one person can oversee. You're spending five figures a month on software that barely talks to itself, MLS data shows up in three places and matches in none of them, and the agents are frustrated enough to mention it at every all-hands.
The pain today
- Average brokerage runs 11+ SaaS tools — most overlap, few integrate cleanly
- MLS, CRM, and lead-source data live in separate silos with no source of truth
- No single person owns platform strategy — decisions happen tool by tool
- Agent productivity bleeds out through manual data entry and broken automations
- A full-time CTO hire is premature, but the technical debt is real and growing
The outcome you get
- Real-estate fractional CTO from $5,499/mo — no full-time salary overhead
- Platform strategy defined and documented within 90 days
- Vendor audit reducing monthly tool spend by 30 to 50 percent
- Unified data architecture across MLS, listings, CRM, and lead sources
- Hiring or contractor plan when technical team growth makes sense
Three real-estate situations that actually need a CTO
Fractional CTO for real estate is not a generic offering. Three situations come up repeatedly. First: brokerages above $10M annual commission where tech spend has crossed $150k per year and no senior person is accountable for it. Second: proptech founders pre-Series A who need architecture decisions, a technical narrative for investors, and someone to run the build before they can afford a full-time hire. Third: multi-office groups where each office bought its own tools independently and the integration debt is now a real operational cost.
At Imohub I served as CTO rebuilding a portal that indexed 120,000+ properties with sub-500ms query response and a 70% reduction in infrastructure cost. Same pattern of decisions — architecture, vendor selection, data strategy, team structure — applies directly at brokerage scale and to proptech product builds, just with fewer moving parts.
Real-estate fractional CTO from $5,499/mo — no full-time salary overhead
Vendor consolidation: what the audit typically finds
A typical mid-size brokerage runs CRM, IDX provider, transaction management, website, email marketing, and several lead-gen tools in parallel. Monthly spend lands between $5,000 and $15,000. The audit almost always finds 30 to 50 percent of that is redundant or nearly unused.
Consolidation strategy depends on what actually fits the operation. Some brokerages are better served by an all-in-one platform like kvCORE that covers CRM, IDX, transaction management, and marketing under one login. Others are better off with best-of-breed tools connected by clean middleware. The decision comes down to agent preference, API quality, migration cost, and growth trajectory — not which platform has the best sales deck. I've done this evaluation from inside a real estate tech company, not just as an outside advisor, which changes the caliber of questions I know to ask.
120k+: Properties indexed and searchable.
MLS and data architecture for brokerages and proptech platforms
Real-estate data is split across MLS feeds, proprietary listings, lead sources like Zillow and direct, and CRM records. For brokerages with five or more offices, or for any proptech platform, unifying that data is the strategic lever that everything else depends on.
The architecture I've used and recommend: treat MLS as the read-only canonical source for public listings, layer proprietary listings on top with clear ownership rules, and pull all lead sources into CRM with source attribution intact. At Imohub this ran at 120,000+ property scale using Next.js, Laravel, MongoDB, and Meilisearch on AWS. At brokerage scale the same principles apply with a fraction of the infrastructure complexity.
For proptech founders building consumer or agent-facing platforms, the same data model becomes a competitive moat if done cleanly. Messy data is the reason most competitors have mediocre search and broken recommendations.
AI and analytics: what's real for real estate right now
Every real estate software vendor is attaching an AI label to their product. Most of it is a search widget with a GPT call bolted on. What's actually valuable in 2026: lead scoring that uses behavioral data from your own IDX feed rather than generic models, listing description automation that saves agent time, and data pipelines that give brokers real visibility into which lead sources convert and at what margin.
I work with the tools in my stack — Next.js, Node.js, TypeScript, and the OpenAI and Claude APIs — to build integrations that connect real estate data to practical automation. I'm direct about where AI adds leverage and where a well-structured CRM workflow is the right answer. For most brokerages, the data foundation has to come before AI can do anything useful.
Pricing and engagement structure
CTO Advisory at $5,499 per month covers one to two days per week. Vendor guidance, platform strategy, data architecture decisions, and review of technical proposals. The right fit for brokerages that have a tech coordinator or operations lead who handles execution and need senior technical judgment above that.
Fractional CTO at $9,499 per month covers three days per week with deeper involvement in platform strategy, vendor negotiations, team leadership, and hands-on architecture. Right for operations without any technical leadership currently in place.
Both tiers include a 14-day money-back guarantee and cancel-anytime terms. Most engagements run six to twelve months covering one major platform initiative — consolidation, MLS rebuild, proptech product launch, or pre-fundraise technical story.
When a VP of Product is the better call
Fractional CTO and VP of Product are different gaps. CTO covers how to build, what stack to use, how to integrate systems, and how to structure a technical team. VP of Product covers what to build and in what order, based on user research and market signal.
For smaller brokerages and early proptech companies, a fractional CTO often handles both temporarily. For larger or more product-driven operations, both roles exist separately and I'll say so plainly. I'd rather help you decide what hire actually solves the bottleneck than take an engagement that doesn't fit. If the gap is purely product direction, that's the honest answer.
Recent proof
A comparable engagement, delivered and documented.
Rebuilt a real estate portal at a fraction of the cost
Rebuilt Imóveis SC's real estate portal as ImoHub, a faster, more scalable successor, handling 120k+ properties with sub-second search and drastically reduced AWS costs.
Read the case studyFrequently asked questions
The questions prospects ask before they book.
Owns the decisions that nobody currently owns: which platforms to run, how to integrate them, how data flows between MLS, CRM, and lead sources, and what to prioritize when the tech stack is causing operational drag. It's not IT support and it's not a one-time audit. It's ongoing senior technical judgment applied one to three days per week, long enough to see the major decisions through to working outcomes.
A consultant delivers a report and moves on. A fractional CTO makes decisions, stays accountable for them, and leads internal or external teams during execution. I sit in the vendor meetings, review the architecture before it gets built, and am still available when the integration breaks six weeks later. The accountability is the difference.
Yes. At Imohub I worked directly with RETS and RESO feeds across multiple regions. IDX platform evaluation — iHomeFinder, Showcase IDX, Realtyna, kvCORE — comes down to MLS coverage in your markets, API quality, branding control, and how well it connects to your CRM. For brokerages under 5,000 active listings, an aggregator IDX solution is usually the right call. Larger brokerages and proptech platforms usually benefit from direct MLS feeds with custom rendering for the SEO and data control gains.
By workflow fit first, then API quality, lead-source attribution, transaction integration, pricing structure, and exit path. Follow Up Boss, kvCORE, BoomTown, and LionDesk each fit different operations. All-in-one platforms suit brokerages that want fewer vendors; specialist tools connected by middleware suit teams with strong existing preferences. The decision depends on how agents actually work, not on which platform is currently winning the industry press.
Yes. Investor-facing technical due diligence is part of the fractional CTO role for pre-Series A proptech companies. That means architecture documentation, defensibility of the technical approach, scalability narrative, and being available for technical questions during the raise. The Imohub background is directly credible in real estate tech conversations with investors.
Six to twelve months, usually built around one major initiative — a platform consolidation, MLS integration rebuild, proptech product launch, or pre-fundraise technical cleanup. Some customers stay longer once the first initiative wraps because new technical decisions keep coming. I take one customer at a time in this service, so availability is limited.